


A Net of Dawn and Bones (Intro)

by Vathara



Category: Original Work
Genre: Demons, Gen, Honest cops, Magic, Redemption, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vathara/pseuds/Vathara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blood rituals, black magic, and broken masquerades. Names to run away from really fast. And maybe the end of the world....</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Net of Dawn and Bones (Intro)

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter; whole work now available on Kindle and Amazon. Much thanks to TAG, Snickerer, Kryal, and Lachie for patient beta-ing and putting up with maniacal laughter....
> 
> I want to thank everyone who pointed out the "I can't find this on Kindle" problem. This is the first time I've done this. *G* I went and checked, and if I search on Amazon, I find the paperback. I have to search the Kindle Store directly to bring up the Kindle-available version. So, here are the links!
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Net-Dawn-Bones-C-Chancy/dp/1514759837/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437835797&sr=8-1&keywords=a+net+of+dawn+and+bones
> 
> Print on demand version.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Net-Dawn-Bones-C-Chancy-ebook/dp/B012GZ1LAY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1437835844&sr=1-1&keywords=a+net+of+dawn
> 
> Kindle version.

Darkness, illumined only by the seeping red glow of magma cracks below, the shimmer of ice falling over black cliffs to rumble and hiss into the spreading lava plain. The creak of rock and ice to steam and the wailing souls caught between them wove a net of agony that covered the world, shrouding one small cove of silence.

_“...In nomine Patris, et Filii-”_

“I cannot _believe_ you still pray, after all these years.”

_“...Et Spiritūs Sancti, amen.”_ The spirit in the form of a young woman glanced up, certain of what she would see. And therefore worried. Her friend knew well that time meant little to spirits. Much less to the Lord of Heaven. _For a thousand years in His sight are as yesterday when it is past_ , she’d murmured to him, as she tended ethereal wounds. _Like a watch in the night_. “Good evening, Aidan. How fare you?”

The fiery spirit flickered on the dark river’s shore; now a whirling globe of flame, now the ghost of a tall, red-headed man with amber eyes. “You don’t even know if it’s night or day!”

“Possibly not,” Myrrh admitted. _Very worried, if he chooses to think of the mortal realm_. Aidan was a practical spirit, when all was said and done. Why dwell on Earthly sunrise when it was the murks and piercing lights of Hell that brought enemies seeking him? “Still, Hell is a place created, as all places are created; and as such a place, it has tides and rhythms of its own. Perhaps it mocks the world above. Perhaps not.” She nodded toward him, half-cloaked in deeper shadows. “But from the way you flicker, I would say it is night.”

One finger raised in the start of yet another taunt, the ghostly fire froze. “...Oh, I give up.”

Myrrh drew a breath, and picked up a pitcher of odd steel, dipping it into the sharded ice near shore to fill with cracked white translucence. “Despair-”

“-Is a sin, heard it before; _clue_ , lady! Look around you!”

_Yes, I look, my friend. And I listen_. Something had to be badly wrong. Though it couldn’t be an immediate danger. Aidan was _fire_. He wouldn’t snap and snarl, he’d _act_.

_If he’s that worried, he’s not taking care of himself. Again_.

Myrrh drew her pitcher out of the ice, and walked back to the sheltering alcove she’d found among the rocks. The shadows were fathomless here, swallowing all but the faintest glints of ice-white, but at least eddies of wind dampened the endless moans. “For I listened, as the whirlwind passed over me; but God was not in the whirlwind,” she murmured to the ice. “The Lord was in the silence.”

Ice shuddered, as if shifting from under a great weight, and softened into water.

Myrrh held still and breathed, gauging the pitcher’s position as much by weight and touch as by sight. Now the alcove was utterly dark, save for glints of firelight and whatever stray glow might wisp from strands of white hair. Earthbound caves were dark, but that mortal darkness was as a downy coverlet, compared to the leaden weight of Hell lightless.

But she didn’t need to see water. The slosh of it, the cool of the pitcher where it rested inside, the shift and whisper of air as liquid moved - all told her as much as mortal vision could. More; mortal sight would only see black water. It took an enchantress’ Sight to see that liquid was _only_ water, lacking the haunts and taints of Hell.

Moving deliberately as a tea ceremony, Myrrh poured two cups. “Would you have water, Aidan?”

“ _Fire_ spirit?”

“So you say.” Myrrh shrugged, and waited. “What have you seen in your wanderings now, that leads you to seek me?”

Flames flickered into long limbs, dressed in black and gray like a patched motley of trenchcoat and hooded sweatshirt. Hidden under both, she knew, was a white cord cradling an obsidian pendant, match to the red and bronze concealed under her shadow-shift; the reason he _could_ find her, with all the wilds of Hell to search. “You’re never getting out of here. You know that, right? No one does.”

“So you’ve said.” Myrrh withdrew her hand as he fumbled with the rounded handle; Aidan never wished to admit it was difficult to take a fleshly form. “But as I’ve told you, Aidan, the Gates are shattered and thrown down. They have been cast down a very long time.”

“Eh. So _you_ say.” He sipped, haunted amber eyes searching the darkness. “Why doesn’t anything ever catch you?”

“You know things try,” Myrrh nodded. “If not for me, then for those whose hopes I carry.” Her hand touched the phial at her breast, silver cord twined with red; the pale glow of sleeping souls hidden by the shadows that clothed her. “Do you need shelter, Aidan?”

Amber eyes almost disappeared as he drained his cup. Even the glow of fiery hair dimmed, like embers under ash. “...Fire spirit _in Hell_.”

“I believe I did notice that, yes.” Myrrh tried not to chuckle too loudly. After two decades, it was almost a joke between them; like an alley-cat, her friend walked on his own. If he happened to curl up where someone else was, while various loud and dangerous things roared by, it was just a coincidence. “Even fire may need shelter from a flood. Do you need help?” Patience. Patience was the key.

That, and not yielding to the impulse to upend the entire pitcher over his head. Splashing Aidan _never_ ended well.

“Damn it!” He flung up long hands, white fire flickering at his fingertips. “I’ve been pestering you for _twenty years_. Why the hell won’t you think I’m a demon?”

“Questions like that, for one,” Myrrh murmured. “Or perhaps, the simple fact that you’ve shared my cups for the past two decades.”

“Right,” Aidan grumbled. “Because only an _idiot_ turns down clean water in the middle of the Wailing Plains.”

Myrrh inclined her head. “One would think, yes. Oddly enough, that which harms evil is often a boon to those of good intent. If a hostile demon had drunk that water....” For a moment she let an edge creep into her smile, sharp as a wolf’s. “Well. He might find it a very unfriendly drink, indeed.”

Aidan froze. Amber eyes flicked toward her. Toward the cup. Toward the river.

“As kin of mine once said,” Myrrh smiled, “I am not a _tame_ lion.” She breathed out, and spread an open hand. “Aidan, if I’d ever thought I would do you harm I would never have offered it. Fire, demon, spirit - you are a wounded soul. Not an evil one.” She shrugged. “It’s wiser not to be thought a human spirit in these realms. I know that more than anyone.”

“Yeah, because you say you’ve been here a _lot_ -”

“I have.” Myrrh settled back against stone. Part of what seemed basalt oozed, but hot tar found no purchase on shadows. “Is that what you find hardest to believe? That there might be a way to realms brighter than this?”

“ _Nobody_ gets out of here alive.”

“No one here is, strictly speaking, alive. In the mortal sense,” Myrrh stated carefully. “So that loophole is quite open, for those with eyes to see. What troubles you?”

“Hey, I’ve been down here a while too, y’know. Nothing bothers me.” Amber eyes bored into quiet gray. _“Nothing.”_

“As you say.” Myrrh inclined her head. Patience. Though oh, it was hard to sit, and wait, and listen. Something had hurt her friend, and Aidan was very hard to injure. He might not have the strength of a demon lord, but he was quick, and wily, and had the nerves of a phalanx veteran. There were few things in Hell he could not dodge or flee.

_Yet he found one. Or... did one find him?_

“But a little while ago, there was something....” Red flame flickered from where teeth bit his lip. “Maybe I’d better just show you.”

 

* * *

 

“Hmm.” Myrrh shaded her gaze with one hand, clinging to a sheer face of basalt with the other as she peered at the distant pillar of aching whiteness. From the winged specks circling near the base, it was as wide as a ziggurat of Babylon. Yet its walls had no steps, only razor-sharp straightness that pierced endlessly upward. “Well, that’s not good.”

“Oh, you think?” More crackles than words, from the globe of flame bobbing near her shoulder. “Freaky bright impossible _thing_....”

“Hmm.” Myrrh tightened her fingers on tiny cracks in stone, making certain her grip was secure. It wouldn’t do to be careless. Not with such as that loose in Hell.

And how had that foul creation grown so strong, without her notice? She could have sworn she’d wandered this part of the Wailing Plains less than a year ago. There should have been a sign. There should have been at least a foundation, and walls half-built of fear and agony. The sorcerous craft necessary to build such an edifice was neither easy nor swift. The chants alone should have taken years on Earth; few sorcerers dared stay out of human sight long enough to complete more than one a moon.

_Either this was crafted in less than a year - which seems impossible! - or it was hidden from my sight_.

Which also seemed impossible. If any creatures had laid a glamour strong and subtle enough to hide such awful power, why did she sense no trace of that spell now?

_Then again, I am not alone. And spells meant to bar such as I from discovering this horror, may have been crafted with quite a different intent for a... wandering fire spirit_. “Were you drawn to it?”

“Hell, yeah. Tell me something that isn’t pulled in by that! I saw those weird spike-winged guys go whizzing by, and soul-wisps, and something that kind of wriggled, and - one light source in the middle of for-freaking- _ever_ dark, dark with screams, dark with ice, and more dark-”

“But instead of venturing near it, you came to find me,” Myrrh observed. Slid a glance toward bobbing fire, one pale brow raised.

“Hey, who said I had any sense?” The fire’s flickers slowed, heart-fast instead of hummingbird-flutters, as the globe ducked behind her shoulder. “You’re the only thing around here that’s not heading for that - that _twist_ in the world. I want to know why.”

“I imagine you do,” Myrrh mused. “As much as you wanted to know why you felt drawn to it, and yet in fear for your very existence if you followed that call?”

“...You’ve got no right to be that freaky.” A crackling snort. “Fire spirit. What, a little light, me worry?”

“It isn’t light.” Myrrh clung tight to basalt. The dark stone might be hell-stuff, but at least it was honest in its will to shake climbers from it, to fall in screams and terror. Answer that honesty with her own stubborn will, and she had nothing to fear from it. Unlike that hellish creation glowing ahead of them. “That energy

only appears to be light. And that is the greatest lie of all.” She lowered her head and looked away; time to get somewhere a bit less exposed. “Think of it as supernatural flypaper-”

“Say _what?_ ”

“A spiderweb might be more accurate,” she admitted. “It pulls in souls to power it, and so draws demons to glut themselves on human fear.” And which fate Aidan might suffer - she doubted either of them wanted to find out. “Don’t go any closer. You fought off the pull once; and that must have taken all the will you could muster. You’re a strong soul-”

“Hey! Not a-”

“-It’s a Demongate.”

“Um.” If flame could gulp, Aidan did. “That what it sounds like?”

“Yes. And no. A moment.” Reach out. Find the next handhold, and the next, feeling her way across shadowed stone.

“Easier if you just dropped, you know?”

“I am a human spirit,” Myrrh said between movements, feeling slick stone catch and slide across skin and clothing shadows. “I can’t fly.”

“Key word there being _spirit_ ,” the fire said testily, hovering along as she climbed. “C’mon, you know there’s no limits-”

“There are limits because I choose to cling to them,” Myrrh stated. One more hold. And one more. “Limits can be armor stronger than any breastplate, Aidan. And burn as fierce as any fire. I am human.” She almost chuckled, grim as the situation was. “I’ve told you. I have done this before.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Right.” The fire flickered into near-human form once more as she reached a long crack that was almost a downward-sloping ledge; he clung to the shadow between them and the shining pillar. “Demongate?”

“The Hellish side of one, yes.” Myrrh leaned back against stone, righteous rage stirring from its chained confines in her heart. Acting too fiercely, too impetuously, would doom far more than her soul. But it was hard to be calm. So very hard, knowing what she knew. “Someone on Earth is doing very terrible things.”

“...What, we’re looking at the downside of D.C.?”

She had to laugh. “Thank you, Aidan. But - no. Not likely.” Another sigh, and her lips wrinkled back from her teeth. “No. Someone is doing this with intent. Rapine. Murder. Torture. Those are what build a Demongate. Yet all the pain and suffering in the world cannot breach it from this side to Earth... unless one on Earth truly wills it open, and knows the means to snap loose energies into rigid, captured form.” Gray eyes narrowed. “Usually that takes a summoner of demonic entities. And the ones who live long enough to gain that knowledge are rare.”

“Huh. You lost me.” Aidan fidgeted against stone, obviously trying not to peer around the ledge. “If that thing’s supposed to open up some Hell on Earth, how come lots of demon summoners don’t live long enough to learn it? You’d think Hell would like that.”

“Hell is jealous of its powers,” Myrrh shrugged, shifting her shoulders against stone. “You’ve seen that in your wanderings. Hell is jealousy. And hate, and envy, and all manner of darkness. To have the forethought to open a way to Earth - that takes discipline. Few are the demons who can chain their desires enough for that.” She breathed in, and nodded. “Thank you, Aidan, I can deal with-”

“Don’t you dare do something stupid!” The hand that gripped her arm was hot as sun-warmed asphalt. “Who the hell am I going to mock if you charge in like an idiot, huh?”

“I assure you, I have no intention of charging in,” Myrrh said dryly. “Like an idiot, or otherwise.”

“But you were thinking about it!”

“A soul may think many things, and then think better of them,” Myrrh observed. “That, is the gift of reflection.” She did not move his fingers. Not yet. “I know my limits, Aidan. I can’t dismantle that edifice with one lone assault.” Though she could _damage_ it, yes. And if the Demongate grew closer to completion, she might consider that option in more earnest. “To be truly closed, we must find the sorcerer on Earth. And... persuade him to see the error of his ways.”

“Weeks she seems so nice, then she says something like that- _wait_ a minute.” Amber glared at her. “What do you mean, _we?_ ”

“Ah. A slip of the tongue, perhaps.” She met his gaze like still water; fire might burn her, but it could not destroy. “This will take some thought....”

A wailing drifted on the wind.

Shrugging off hot fingers, Myrrh leaped.

_“Get it away, oh those teeth, that tearing- no, get it away-”_

_Thump_.

Hmm. A very solid ghost. A new soul, then, Myrrh determined, letting her weight pin translucent ectoplasm to the black rock below them. “Hush, lost one,” she said softly, to what had once been a young woman. “You were lost, but you are found. Tell me of the beast that slew you.”

“I’m a human, she says. I can’t fly.” Aidan’s snarl, as fiery fingers touched her shoulder. “What the heck do you think you’re- _Whoof_.”

Myrrh let the trembling ghost rise a little, the ragged mess of the spirit’s throat still seeping silvery fluid. “Did you see what hurt you, young one?”

“You don’t look old.” The ghost’s whisper was ragged, doubled; human fear, and the raspy growl of the demon-wolf. Pale eyes flickered gold. “Shouldn’t be here... I had Cap-Silver, it should have gone away, I shouldn’t be _here-!_ ”

Myrrh struck as the mouth gaped wider, showing fangs. _Nose, jaw-point, ear and grab!_

Misty flesh twisted in her fingers. Face pressed to unyielding stone, the lost soul whimpered.

“What- she-!” Aidan gulped. “She’s not human-”

“If she tries to bite you, burn her.” Myrrh’s voice was cold and unforgiving as winter. A chill that hurt her soul like frost; she wanted to comfort the lost, not terrify them further. “Do not let her fangs scratch you. Her soul is cursed.”

“...Fire spirit?” Aidan said weakly.

“And the last thing I need, truly, is a _flaming_ werewolf.” Gray eyes caught amber. “Don’t worry. That curse cannot seize on me. Even if I were wearing flesh.”

_“Werewolf?”_

“Most likely, from the wound,” Myrrh nodded, keeping the whimpering ghost pinned as stifled howls shifted to human sobs. “Though there are many forms of therianthrope in the world. Still, wolves are the most common demon-breed of that ilk.”

“...Werewolves are _demons?_ ”

“And you said you’d seen everything.” Myrrh almost smiled, body under her or no. Sometimes it was all too obvious how young Aidan really was. She’d no doubt he had seen werewolf demons roaming the nearby Hellish realms. But he apparently hadn’t seen enough of them to realize they were any different from wolf demons, or any of a dozen other breeds that might rejoice in the title _hounds of Hell_.

_I need to teach him more. If I can get flame to sit still and listen_. “Most werewolves are demon-tainted, yes. Some few are not. But if this lost one had been attacked by a wolf-shifter under a saint’s curse, she would only have died. Her soul would not be tainted... and it would not be here.” Myrrh kept her voice quiet, easing her grip on an ear near-human once more. “Do you know where you are, young lady?”

“...I’m not dead.” The ghost bristled. “I’m not!”

“Yes, you are,” Myrrh sighed. “I’m so sorry. You’re fortunate the situation is such that the locals are... distracted.” She glanced at not-true-light, lips thinned. “Though if you’d kept drifting that way, you would not be lucky at all. A werewolf’s victims are meant to haunt him. They’d have used your link to his soul as one more lever to pry at the barrier-”

_“I’m not-!”_

“Rest in peace.” _Thump!_

“You just KO’d a ghost.” Aidan had moved a long step back, eyes wary, weighing how the knife-blade of her flattened hand had struck a wounded throat. “Didn’t think anything could do that.”

And why should he? Most tormented souls were conscious of their sins. Always. “God helps those who help themselves,” Myrrh observed. She moved off the still form, pulling the phial out from under her shirt, a soft blue glow in the endless dark. “And such as she is, are my job. Please step back. This might hurt you.”

He didn’t move, white-lipped and dripping fire. But he didn’t come closer.

_Good enough_. Myrrh made the sign of the cross over the unconscious spirit, and uncorked her phial. “Seek peace, and healing. When I once more breathe mortal air, you will be free to step forth, and be judged among the righteous.”

Slowly, the silver blood ceased to flow. Ectoplasm knit together in a building light, fangs and gilded eyes and hair-tipped ears blazing away like dross in a raging fire-

White as stars, light shot into her phial.

Stone lay before her, empty.

Behind her ashes rustled, as Aidan stumbled back. “What. The. _Hell?_ ”

Fear, shivering down her spine like the Wendigo’s Arctic breath. Her friend, one of the few creatures here she might trust with her existence, feared her.

_And I have no time to explain_.

Myrrh corked the phial and hid it again, breathing hard. “I’ll tell you. If I live that long.”

Pushing to her feet, she ran.

In the darkness, something roared. And something answered.

* * *

 

Even without the bounds of flesh, a human soul could not outrun a demon. Not forever.

“I look unto the hills,” Myrrh muttered as she ran, steps silent as the grave, “from whence cometh my help-”

“Little earthquake right now _would_ help, sure.” The fire-globe’s voice was taut, untrusting. Still pacing her as she fled from bare, ashy ground into the steely thorns that cloaked these undulating hills of lava, far enough from the river that ice might grudgingly seep water to bare soil. But pacing at a distance; as if any moment flames might simply vanish in the endless night. “I can see ‘em flying, you know. You really think they’re going to let you steal a soul?”

Shadows snared on a reaching limb of thorns. Myrrh sighed, and took the extra second to free herself. Panic... was natural, but not helpful. “Is that what you think I have done?”

“You sucked her soul into a jar!”

“A phial. And there is a reason-” Thorns jabbed deep, and she winced. “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus....”

A howl pierced the darkness, trailing acid down her bones.

“You hear that? That, is why I think you’re not human, lady. ‘Cause any sane person would be swearing his head off by now!”

“Do not take the name of the Lord in vain,” Myrrh gritted out.

Ah, but that hurt. Though not all the acid taste in her mouth was fear. She could smell something beyond the rust of steely thorns; fur, and leaves, and blood. “For in his name are done mighty works; both mighty, and perilous.”

“Yeah, and a hell of a lot of death and destruction-”

Thorns whipped without wind, a horde of hissing forms leaping out to rend and tear.

_Barbweasels!_

Neither bramble nor beast; bloodthirsty as any earthly weasel, with the cunning of Hell’s own snares. The tangle swarmed her, briar-fangs and thorn-claws tearing at shadows, seeking the pulse of a spirit’s heart.

Myrrh drew in a deep breath, accepting the pain. It would only last an instant more. “Wickedness has blazed forth like fire, devouring thorn and thistle! It kindles the thickets of the wood; they turn to billowing smoke!”

For a moment, it felt as if she herself were aflame; her skin was the thorns, her bones the tangled briars. And why should it not? They were all soul-stuff here.

But she knew who she was, and what she was. Smoke pulled away as the flames spread, devouring the tangle and shrouding them under impenetrable darkness.

“I thought I was supposed to be the pyro around here... hey, what gives? Running, remember?”

And if this were only a mortal night, and mortal smoke, she would. Blind, Myrrh listened, and assayed one step. Another. There had been shadows among the thorns to her right, hints of what should be a concealing gully-

Her foot stirred a shard of rock, grating against the roar of flames. She froze.

“...You can’t see anything, can you?”

_Now. If he truly fears me, it will be now_.

It wouldn’t be hard. Whatever he was, Aidan was no ordinary mortal soul. He could see in this murk like a lion; and like that king of beasts, he had the strength to match ten heroes. Did the fight come to bone and sinew, she was no more match for him than a mouse under a cat’s paw.

And he knew it. They’d battled before; once or twice near serious, before she’d made it clear she would withdraw rather than attack. As Aidan had watched and snarled at her over the years, he’d gradually come to believe that she had no interest in harming him. He’d begun to wander with her, often as not; to trust her enough to take solid form and spar, or even to seek her aid against things that hunted them both.

Now that trust was torn and bleeding. And there were so many, _many_ things a wounded soul might do. Attack. Retreat, and leave her to the moaning hunt. Or simply cough, and draw them all down like the wrath of Hades.

_Aidan. I’m sorry. I didn’t think_.

She didn’t know how his spirit had come to be in Hell, but from what she suspected-

_He likely has seen soul-jars_.

She’d hurt him. An apology would only be salt in the wound.

_He’s young, but he’s quick. Where there’s one soul captive, there may be more. He_ knows _I have stolen souls from Hell_.

And she couldn’t tell him _why_.

_And what would I say, if I could?_ Myrrh wondered. _That the powers here have sought me for longer than he can imagine? That if they catch me, they will inflict all the horrors of Hell? He knows the torments a soul can endure, and yet still exist. He’s survived them. That no one human would turn any soul over to the hordes? He clings to the fact that he_ is not _human. And I’ve seen far too many humans do more horrible things than that_.

Silently, she prayed. And waited. She might fight him or the hosts, but never both of them.

_If I’ve shattered your trust in me so horribly - let it be swift_.

Strength seized her, bruising arm and side as it hoisted her from the rocks. She swallowed back nausea as the world moved around her; leaving solid ground, even Hellish ground, always threw her inner calm into a raging sea of turmoil.

_Wait. Wait for the right moment, you don’t know where you are_ -

Hot fingers released her.

Myrrh dropped to ashy ground, dampening the sound with her shadows. Curled into the gully, breathing soft and soundless as she could make it.

Silent, a globe of flame sheltered under her shadow-cloak. More

shadows seemed to curl in towards them, thickening over them like smoke.

There was a thunder of wings, as if the hammered vault of the firmament above had been riven by bolts of lambent star-fire. Cackles and gibbering filled the wind that tore at her where she crouched, head down, shadows and smoke pulled over herself and her ally in a shrouding veil.

“And if one look to the land, behold darkness and distress....” Myrrh held her eyes closed as that tumult roared out above them. Their enemies were numerous as the schools of the sea, and more powerful than a pounding ocean. The two of them must be only a chip of bark on the waves; floating, damp, but never drowned.

The roaring faded.

“After this is over?” Aidan’s voice was quiet as falling ashes. “You owe me a long. Long. _Long_ explanation.”

Myrrh blinked, noting how the wind of wings had torn at concealing smoke. “I do, indeed. For now - time we were away.”

“Hey, they went past here. If you move-”

“Those were the winged host,” Myrrh said dryly, as the fire-globe floated out of her shadow. “Next will come-”

A long, mournful howl, shuddering over skin like cold blood dripping down her hand. Echoed and reechoed moments later, by a score of other fell throats.

“The hounds-!” Gold eyes glinted in the flames. “But they never call the whole pack out....”

Myrrh wanted to laugh. Or cry. The utter _shock_ in that voice... he truly was young. A quarter of a century, she’d managed to slip clear of most notice. Now she’d tampered with a Demongate’s prey, and any hellish lord with a talon in the game could never let that pass.

_More than that. The lords of Hell are old, and proud, and_ learned. _They know how few entities have the power to snatch away their prey_.

_And one of those few, is me_.

Well. Spilled milk, as old tales said. “I am, perhaps,” Myrrh admitted, “a bit more infamous in certain demonic courts than I may have mentioned.”

“No, really?” Aidan deadpanned.

“Really.” Brushing away ash, she set off at a run again.

“...That’s it?” Flames flickered; almost a haunted face. “Just keep running? Don’t you even care?”

“What should I care for, my friend?” Myrrh spoke between strides, settling into the rhythm of a gait that had run down werewolves, when she had to. “What you did - or what you did not do?”

“They’re going to catch you, damn it!”

“They have not,” breathe in, “caught me yet.” And out....

Back to the gleaming pallor of the Demongate, Myrrh ran. Distance. As much distance as she could put between them. Demons were cruel and cunning and relentless, but most of them were slaves to their desires. And the Demongate called them. Souls in Hell could always be caught for later torment. Souls on Earth....

Which would have worked, had the rolling hills of gravelly basalt and ashy thorns not suddenly sagged into wet mire. Darkness turned thick and sodden here, lit by the ghostly flickers of tiny, bloodsucking creatures of twisted chitin and fungoid wings.

“Always knew mosquitoes were evil.” Red hair flickered into being in the night like a torch; Aidan swatted little monsters with a snarl, eyes snapping sparks. “No offense, but I think you’re screwed. Unless you can pull a Moses and part the waters....” He trailed off, giving her a sudden wary look.

Catching her breath, Myrrh smiled. “Not quite.” Oh, but she was tired....

But she was not done. Not yet. She peered at the marsh ahead, picking out a tuft of luminescent gray-green, a stump slimed with brown, and beyond a patch of higher ground thick with knife-edged grass. Yes. That would do.

She gathered her will, and her faith. Raised one hand, and held it out flat over the dark and oily pool. “The watercourses are dried up,” Myrrh murmured, “and fire hath consumed the pasture of the wilderness.”

Under her hand, balefire blazed. With a crackling of ice, frost forged outward like unseen hunting hounds, sucking away water and leaving a trail of frozen mud.

Face steady, Myrrh walked forward, icy clay threatening to

throw her with every step. Just a bit longer, just a bit farther....

She set foot on the slippery hillock, and stumbled. Like a hiss of steam, frost vanished.

The grass was as sharp as it looked.

“Okay, I stand corrected.” Aidan’s voice was oddly soft, as she pulled one foot from sucking mud. “ _Now_ you’re screwed.”

“You may be right.” Myrrh dropped to her knees, and said a quick _Ave Maria_.

“Um. This isn’t exactly time for praying-”

“It is precisely the time.” She was getting her breath back. But not fast enough. “There is no farther I can go from here.” She stared into the bleak night, watching, listening. “Still. There is always the chance I might get lucky.”

Something shifted in the marsh wind. Something cold, and cruel, and terribly familiar.

“Or not,” Myrrh muttered, loosening the phial in its hiding place. “Aidan. If I fall here... and that is likely, I know who walks in this wind... take these souls and go.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, and I’m not turning you over to them, but like hell I’m going to steal souls!”

“Ah. But it is my _job_ to steal souls, Aidan.” Myrrh smiled, even with the promise of death moving in like the pressure of a storm front. “I am a hell-raider.”

He almost flickered into form, then back to near-inscrutable flames. “A... what?” Fire waved like a hand brushing off insanity. “This is _Hell_. Nobody gets out-”

“Oh, but one did. And since then, many have. The Gates are shattered; all it takes is the courage, and the skill.” She raised pale brows at him. “Even you have heard the prayer, long ago. _He suffered, was crucified, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day he rose again from the dead_. _He ascended into Heaven_ -”

“...Jesus _Christ_.”

“Indeed.” Myrrh inclined her head, even as the ripples of that careless naming whispered out through the marsh. It wouldn’t be much longer anyway. “No human soul has strength enough to _break_ the Gates. But they are already broken, and utterly cast down. And as he was the Son of Man and the Son of God, so other sons and daughters of Eve have dared to follow where he has led. We die. And we descend into Hell, to rescue those cursed, and brought here not by their actions, but by others. By demonkind, and cursed bites, and unholy sacrifice, and... all manner of things you have been fortunate enough not to meet, yet.”

Hmm. Had he twitched at _sacrifice?_

_As I thought. I do owe you an apology, Aidan. Though I doubt I’ll have time to give it_.

“You die.” Aidan’s flames shuddered. “On purpose?”

“To die in the service of life is not a sin,” Myrrh said gravely. This was not the time to get into complex theology, much less the shouting matches she’d held with many priests over the centuries. “Though usually, our deaths do come at other hands. As my last one did.”

“Last- _how many times have you done this?_ ”

“I was born,” Myrrh said, listening to the hate on the wind while she calculated the numbers, “somewhere around... hmm. The numbers _are_ a bit tricky, between the Empire and your modern archaeologists. You would say, about 250 A.D.? I think.”

Dead silence. Only the blurred buzz of fungoid wings. She slapped one away before it could bite.

“...There’s a way out.” Aidan was a fiery shadow, hunched into his trenchcoat. “Man, I so wish I could believe you.”

“There is,” Myrrh inclined her head. “Which is, unfortunately, why this was one rescue too close, and too many. There are... those who have met me before. And one of those comes, now.” She sighed. “He knows I may escape. He will not wait patiently for me to falter.”

“Hate to point this out, but if you’ve got a way out-!” Hands flung upwards.

“Ah. That.” She almost had to laugh. “Well. That depends on... certain circumstances.” Oh, the listening _hurt_.  

_I will not despair_.

“Oh. Joy.” For one who claimed to be a fire spirit, Aidan seemed to be rubbing a very human headache. “So no rescue, huh? No angels coming down from Heaven to yank _you_ out of this. Souls or no souls.”

“No rescue,” Myrrh agreed softly. “As you might say, I knew that when I took the job.” Gray eyes sought amber flickers. “If I am taken... please. Do not leave them to be dragged back into the darkness.”

“...You don’t know me.”

“I know what I have seen you do. And not do.” Myrrh felt the pressure build; even the glowing pests skittered away. “It is enough.” She straightened. “Ill met, Lord of Minor Pestilential Midges.”

“...You’re deliberately hacking off a demon.” Fire ducked behind her, incredulous. “Never seen this woman before in my life....”

“Hell-raider.” The voice was thick and choked; a muddy swamp surging over ancient fallen trees. Arms like tentacles reached out, absorbing any bloodsucker not fast enough to buzz clear. “Found you at last.”

“Tch. And so long it took you!” Myrrh smirked at the walking, buzzing mire on the far shore, calculating how long it would take his will to suborn the landscape and let him surge through it like water. Not long, marsh calling to marsh. Pity. “Why, ten centuries ago, you would have known my hands at work in a day!” She clicked her tongue. “You are _slipping_. Have my comrades wreaked such harm on your schemes? Have humans forgotten how they feared you, when the _mal’aria_ stalked and none knew why, and quinine was but an impossible fantasy?” She waved a languid hand, heart pounding like a drum. “Or perhaps your fellow lords seek to suck away your power, and turn you into naught but a squirming larva to be molded into cannon fodder-”

In the distance, a clarion horn rang.

_Oh, sweet Jesu_. “As you know they would,” Myrrh went on, ringing like copper cymbals sweet in her ears. The first trumpet of dawn. Time. She needed only a little more time!

“Not distracted this time, soul-seeker. Not even by petty little fireling.” Jagged stumps of chitin-teeth snarled at her. “Hmm. Munch the fire-brat, or bring him back to... heh heh heh. Fireling _knows_.”

“Go jump in a lake and drown!” Aidan flickered into form beside her, one finger extended. “I am not heading anywhere near that son of a bitch again, you can rip me apart first!” He stopped, and blinked. “Oh, man. You’re a horrible influence on a poor helpless fire spirit. You know that, right?”

Myrrh drew in a steadying breath, hearing that second, silvery call. Dawn. Somewhere on Earth, her anchor knew a mortal dawn. “Oh, I do indeed. Do you trust me?”

Aidan waved an arm, lighting flames that showed the boggy hosts gathering behind their enemy. “This is a heck of a time to ask!”

“Oh, but it is the best time to ask,” Myrrh murmured. “The only time it seems I will have... do you trust me? Will you come with me?”

“Come-” Amber eyes jerked to meet hers, shocked. “You   said-!”

“Hell-raider words are ash and sand!” The demon surged into oily water, spreading over the surface like a walking cesspool as he and his minions advanced. “See? Marsh does not burn! Hell-raider has run too long! Stolen too much! No power left. No _grace_. Prayers will not bite; words will not stop us this time-”

Myrrh smiled.

Like a slowing avalanche of filth, the demon paused. Snarled, a dripping arm lashing out-

One more breath of will. Of _belief_. “Turn our captivity, oh Lord,” Myrrh declared, “as streams in a dry land.”

Her vision swam. Her heart ached. But an inch from her face, muck whipped back on itself.

_Now. Now!_ Blindly, she reached out behind her, seizing trenchcoat and flames. Hoping. Praying. At the very least, she might free a repentant soul from torment. Yet if Aidan was what she believed he might be, this would do so much more. “Aidan! Trust me. _Believe_.”

“I believe you’re fucking _crazy-!_ ”

The golden peal rang out, and there was light.

And, quite possibly, one hell-raider’s hand raised in the _digitus impudicus_.

_Someone_ had to keep up old Roman traditions, after all.  



End file.
